JOHN McDONNELL’S suggestion of sweeping Margaret Hodge’s calculated “anti-semite” calumny against Jeremy Corbyn under the carpet is understandable but wrong.

The shadow chancellor is mistaken in confusing Hodge’s repeated slurs against the party leader with his own earlier tendency to occasionally adopt too sharp a tone in inner-party debate before having to apologise.

As a senior shadow cabinet member, McDonnell sees his role as soothing ruffled feathers and encouraging party unity to concentrate fire on the Tories.

Such an approach comes unstuck when Hodge disregards party unity and persists with her vile slander that Corbyn, a lifelong battler against all forms of racism, is an anti-semite.

Corbyn’s character assassination has degenerated from portrayal as someone not personally anti-semitic but tolerant of rising anti-semitism in the party to being, in Hodge’s repeated words, “an anti-semite and a racist.”

Shadow defence secretary Nia Griffith’s description of Hodge’s conduct as merely a debate about policy is beyond contempt.

It beggars belief also that someone of her party seniority should be unaware “of any processes by which because somebody speaks to somebody else 'in a particular way' we've had disciplinary procedures.”

Has the tidal wave of suspensions and denials of party membership put in train under Labour’s previous national administration in a vain bid to prevent Corbyn’s election and re-election passed her by?

Did she follow the Marc Wadsworth case, for example, when Wadsworth commented on one anti-Corbyn MP shuffling papers with a Telegraph journalist at a press conference and was duly suspended on trumped-up — and later dropped — anti-semitism charges?

Whether Hodge’s comments are investigated and resolved quickly by the complaint being dropped, as McDonnell wants, or become subject to disciplinary proceedings is a matter for general secretary Jennie Formby and Labour Party structures.

But no democratic and anti-racist organisation can simply smile indulgently as its leader is subjected to smears that put in question his entire political record.

Labour cannot afford to, in effect, leave the question open.

The party at all levels either declares that it is committed to rooting out all forms of racism, including anti-semitism, and that Corbyn is heading that fight or it accepts as routine senior party figures attacking the party leader with impunity.

Hodge’s attacks on Corbyn follow on from suspended MP John Woodcock’s resignation from the party citing the anti-semitism canard and a consistent media campaign accusing Labour of rejecting the International Holocaust Remembrance Association (IHRA) definition of anti-semitism, complete with examples crafted to limit criticism of Israel.

They have also coincided with opinion polls showing Labour outdoing the Tories.

As David Rosenberg of the Jewish Socialists’ Group points out, the IHRA definition is not “a tablet of stone.” Nor is it the only or “internationally accepted” definition.

His organisation, along with other pro-Labour Jewish groups and individuals in Britain, welcomes the party’s “broader, deeper definition.”

They are far from alone internationally. Three dozen non-zionist Jewish groups, mobilised by the US-based Jewish Voice for Peace, issued a statement earlier this month accusing those pushing the adorned IHRA definition of “intentionally” equating legitimate criticisms of Israel with anti-semitism.

Labour cannot allow itself to be bludgeoned into accepting something it knows is wrong in the hope of deflecting constant abuse.

It won’t happen. Those behind the campaign will only be satisfied by Corbyn’s resignation and Labour’s spineless return to pro-zionist acquiescence.

The party must uphold its principles and insist that all members do likewise.